Repost This ArticleI envisioned my family research going like this.
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I’d collect a few names, then trace my roots straight back to the Irish town from where they came. I’d easily locate long lost relatives, and then form a lifelong bond with them. I had visions of me showing up to tea at a brick cottage with my dear distant cousin Mary, while her son Joseph tends to the farmland and shows up at the window periodically for a glass of water.
Instead, I’ve found dead ends, misinformation, confusing archival evidence, and absurd dates. That’s why I hired Walter.
I met my new genealogist at The Rooms Provincial Archives. I was late, and having run to the Archives to make up for lost time, I appeared before him disheveled and out of breath. My pink boots squeaked with every step in the silent research room. “Hi, I’m Candice!” I announced, too loud. He didn’t even look up, just gestured for me to have a seat and we got down to business.
He knew his stuff; I sat there as he pulled records from boxes and shelves. He handed me a giant book filled with the Walsh surname. He easily read his way down through the scrawled handwriting, while I held the text close to my face, squinting and scanning at a snail’s pace.
Over the next couple of weeks, Walter and I spent days poring over documents in the Provincial Archives and the Maritime History Archives. We consulted online resources and church records. I called parishes and harassed priests for their data. I took up heavy drinking (read: I resumed heavy drinking).
As I researched, I felt a growing sense of dread. I remember Walter flipping through pages and mumbling, “Just pages and pages of dead people.” Thousands of people who lived full lives and were loved by families, who never bothered keeping records. Who couldn’t conceive the idea that 200 years later, a distant relative would be trying to learn anything about them. They just lived. Will someone be looking for me 200 years from now? Will someone find my Facebook profile as archival evidence? Will photos of me as an 18-year-old posing with duckface in the mirror be considered vintage?
What I do know is that my family settled in Burin, a peninsula in Placentia Bay of Newfoundland and Labrador. They arrived sometime in the past 200 years, for reasons unknown. I was screwed from the beginning, Walsh being the most common Irish name in Newfoundland and one of the most common in Ireland. We reproduced like rabbits, apparently. The records I needed from the area I grew up in were missing. My only saving grace was the fact that the man I was searching for, my great great grandfather, had an uncommon name: Wilfred.
I questioned why I would even bother with this research, why it mattered at all where I came from. Halfway through, my uncle suffered a violent death too fresh to describe here. I thought, why do I care about all of this, when I’m neglecting the family I have now? I was forced to face my own mortality. How quickly our existence is erased with just a few generations.
But the Newfoundland obsession with our connection with “home” is nothing new, and I’ve always been pulled to Ireland. Newfoundland is often referred to as “the most Irish place outside of Ireland,” and we’ve borrowed the language, traditions, and music over the years. Like the Irish, we’ve got a reputation for being hospitable and smitten with the drink. We also make good storytellers, and lovers.
My big breakthrough happened when Walter and I started going through every single Walsh marriage record in Newfoundland around the time that the Walsh’s lived in Burin. We found that different Walsh families settled in different areas, and the majority of those in Burin were from County Waterford. This makes sense, since Newfoundland’s largest Irish population came from Co. Waterford.
We then found a gravestone in Burin with three Walsh names: Michael, John, and Richard. Names that are dominant in my family tree. They were from Aglish, Waterford, while other Walsh’s / residents in the area were from Lismore…both towns that are within a few miles or each other.
2013 is the year of The Gathering in Ireland, an open invitation for the world to return to Ireland to explore their roots. In the next five weeks I will be travelling the country, embarking on a “homecoming” mission and searching for god knows what. Family. Place. A sense of belonging. And if I don’t find any of those things, Newfoundland will welcome me back. 
Candice Walsh
Candice is a travel writer and blogger currently stationed in St. John’s, Newfoundland. When she’s not shooting whiskey and hitting on men, she’s eating nachos and dreaming about her next big adventure. Check out her blog, Candice Does the World.
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Interesting Post-I hope you find what you are looking for.
I hope you find some like, Vaudeville actors and some crazy suffragettes and stuff.
Really enjoyed this. That whole idea of people essentially being gone forever after just a few short generations really gets to me too.
I’m an American expat living in Dublin and I recently visited the Glasnevin Cemetery museum (largest cemetery in Ireland). I’d *highly* suggest you going there – they have an amazing interactive display with many different names from Irish history – when you touch their name, it brings up their bio and shows you where they’re located in the cemetery. You’ll probably get free vouchers from the staff when you buy your museum ticket that’ll let you look up any family that may be buried there.
And if you’re into Irish pubs – you just take a shortcut through the grounds to get to the old ‘Gravedigger’s pub’ – where the gravediggers used to go for pints after work.
Anyhow – best of luck with your search and enjoy your visit!
Candice: Always love your sense of humor in your articles! I wish you could have found more about your family. What’s interesting is that in some cases of genealogy, people can find patterns in causes of mortality (sorry- kind of dark).
Great post! We’ve both been doing some serious ancestry research for a couple of years now, and your observations really ring true. I’ve been lucky enough to meet relatives for the first time in Australia and England and most recently in Scotland. I’ve made the Irish connection as well, and am still working on who may still be living there from some branch of my tree. The Gathering is a wonderful idea. I hope to get to Ireland soon too! Safe travels!
Great post! We’ve both been doing some serious ancestry research for a couple of years now, and your observations really ring true. I’ve been lucky enough to meet relatives for the first time in Australia and England and most recently in Scotland. I’ve made the Irish connection as well, and am still working on who may still be living there from some branch of my tree. The Gathering is a wonderful idea. I hope to get to Ireland soon too! Safe travels!
Check out http://www.waterfordcountylibrary.ie/en/familyhistory/.
Tg 4 The Irish channel had a great documentary about the Irish that emigrated from Waterford to Canada. They probably have an copy in the archives.
most people look from the present into the past, searching for those who came before us. since I am the first generation here, I wonder what is in the future. my children do know in great detail where I came from. all 4 have been fortunate enough to go ” home ” several times with me during their childhood. my little grandchildren know ” beppe ” is from holland, because I tell them if they do not eat ” snert” ( pea soup ), they are not allowed in the country. when they are grown, hopefully they will remember that. will they be able to tell their own grandchildren, that some of their family came from friesland in the 1960′s or will they say: somewhere in holland. how much gets passed on to the next generations? I was lucky to have a mother who researched her and my father’s family tree and I was lucky to be interested and listen to her. I can name my grandparents on my father’s father and my mother’s father back about 250 years and what farm or town they came from. from some grandfathers I know their jobs too, boeren knecht ( farm laborer ), ” zeijlmaker ” ( sewed sails for ships ), molenaar ( miller ) etc. my mother was a storyteller, I was listening but what will my offspring recall in 2113, or in 2213? I wrote one book, a sort of daily, or weekly or monthly log, for each grandchild, with lots of stories, of my childhood in friesland and stories of their parents here in u.s.a. all 4 logs are different but have overlapping stories. I have no idea now all the things I wrote about, but hope it will be preserved into the future, answering some things for a curious great-great-great-great-great-great grandchild who travels to friesland, looking for her roots….
Wat in moai stikje, nea ferjitte wer’t je weikomme.
I recently did some of my family history research. I was amazed to find that so many records can be found online these days. Also many other people from other branches of the family had done a lot of work already. I have managed to trace my family back to 1075! They have lived in that same area of Zuid Holland for the last 1000 years!
Hi Candice — it might be worth contacting the Waterford County library service ahead of your visit to Ireland to see if their local history service can help. Genealogy is popular here and maybe someone will have done some of the spade work for you. The National Library in Dublin is also a good resource but research can be time consuming. If you are looking for accommodation in the Waterford area I happened on a good B&B recently — Glendine House — close to the Passage East car ferry. I hope you enjoy your time in Ireland.